Under the title: “A calling from Talat: Lets come to our senses”, Turkish Cypriot daily Yeni Duzen (02.03.12) reports on statements by former Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat who evaluated yesterday morning to a TV program broadcast in the occupied area of Cyprus the latest developments on the Cyprus problem.
Evaluating the latest statements related to the concept of the ongoing negotiation talks in Cyprus, Talat recalled the incidents occurred in the Turkish Cypriot community during the years 2002-2003 and said that taking into account the current developments, he has the impression that we have returned back to those days.
Referring to the latest meetings of the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Cyprus Alexander Downer with several political parties and NGO’s in the occupied area of Cyprus in order to exchange views about the negotiation process, Talat characterized those meetings as natural and added: “If you believe that the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor said negative things to you, you should think the reasons for this instead of reacting”. “It means that Downer will not write positive things to his report” Talat added and thus stressed the need to consider this as a warning.
Talat went on saying that he considers that the UN’s Secretary General will not be able to lead the negotiation process to a summit. He also stated that he does not expect for the negotiation process to succeed and pointed out that Downer got into action the last days in order to prevent the collapse of the process.
He said that if the current situation will continue to exist, the Greek Cypriot side will not be affected since it is recognized and it is supported not only by one state. “Our Achilles heel is only Turkey’s aid, and this is a sin both for us and for Turkey”, Talat added.
He went on saying that he does not consider that Eroglu is afraid of being accused about the negotiation process, adding that in fact he might even feel happy for this. “What he fears is to be accused by Turkey”, Talat said. He referred then to the report to be prepared in the end of March by the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor, and called everyone to come to their senses.
Asked to comment about the cross voting issue, he said that it is a wrong tactic to turn the cross voting issue as a single-handed issue and added that it is also not right to ask from the new negotiator to withdraw this issue from the proposal package.
Talat went on saying that the Kosovo model will not be considered as an example for them, neither the Taiwan model which is a product of the Cold War as he said.
Referring to the possibility of a referendum to take place in occupied Cyprus in case of the failure of the negotiation process, Talat said that the international community is not interested at the moment for a possible referendum but what gets interesting in and says is to “sit and agree”.
Talat expressed also the view that, in case the two sides agree to go on with a referendum and the question to be set will be “Do you agree for a United State or for two independent states”, the UN will not object to this.
